Across The Nation

Summoning his supporters, President Barack Obama on Tuesday predicted Democratic wins across the nation on Nov. 2 if his backers get energized and “hope overcomes fear” once again.

Fielding friendly questions at a political event sponsored by his own party, Obama dabbled with new technology, taking queries from people using the Skype telephone and video service and the Twitter social media network. Yet he broke no ground with his message: Those who voted for him in 2008 must support like-minded candidates in the midterm elections and rally others, or the agenda they want will be in peril.

“The only way this is going to work is if hope defeats fear,” Obama said at George Washington University.

To supporters seated around him and those watching live online, he said if they muster their energy, “I’m absolutely confident that we will do well in this election. We will win all across the country.”

LAS VEGAS

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle is distancing herself from an unusual foe — her own words.

In recent weeks, Angle repeatedly has claimed that she never vowed to end Social Security or federal benefits for veterans. Democrats have widely circulated recordings of her making those very points in early campaign stops.

The shift illuminates Angle’s ongoing evolution from a hard-right state legislator to a slightly mellower national candidate amid attacks from Democrats and the occasional Republican leader.

Her critics have admonished her for, among other things, deeming a BP fund of oil spill victims a “slush fund;” suggesting tea party followers will resort to “Second Amendment remedies” if Washington is not reformed; concluding that unemployment benefits have “spoiled our citizenry;” and blasting Democrats for pushing public benefits to “make government our God.”

WASHINGTON

The U.S. is back in the deep water oil-drilling business. The question now is when work will resume.

The Obama administration, under heavy pressure from the oil industry and Gulf states and with elections nearing, lifted the moratorium that it imposed last April in the wake of the disastrous BP oil spill.

The ban had been scheduled to expire Nov. 30, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday he was moving up the date because new rules imposed after the spill had reduced the risk of another catastrophic blowout. Industry leaders warily waited for details of those rules, saying the moratorium wouldn’t be truly lifted until then.

“The policy position that we are articulating today is that we are open for business,” Salazar declared.

BOSTON

The old sign near its border that proclaims the upstate New York town of Whitehall to be the birthplace of the U.S. Navy is a bit worn out, town clerk Elaine Jones admits. Residents of several other Northeast towns might describe it another way: Not true.

Five communities claim to be the Navy’s birthplace, from a wealthy former fishing hub north of Boston to Whitehall, a town about 200 miles from the nearest ocean.

On the Navy’s official birthday today — its 235th — the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, may try to settle the question at a meeting in Boston at the museum of the USS Constitution, the country’s oldest commissioned Naval warship.

Ferriero will bring documents from the National Archives that detail the claims of the parade of communities asserting Navy paternity, which also include Marblehead and Beverly, Mass.; Philadelphia and Providence, R.I.

But will he rule on the location of the Navy’s true birthplace? Ferriero says only, “We’ll see.”